Into the Silent Night
by alightintheshadows
Summary: The team investigates a series of murders during a local Christmas festival. Unfortunately, the unsub seems to have set his sights on one of their own. Oneshot.


**Hello! Here is a little oneshot I thought of in honor of Christmas. I hope you all enjoy it! I'm setting this around season four because that was one of my favorite seasons. Anyways, on with this short little tale!**

 **I do not own Criminal Minds or its fantastic characters.**

Red and blue flashes almost blended with the multitude of colored lights as two black sedans raced through the streets. The sirens cut through the peaceful silence that previously filled the night.

"Make a right at the next intersection!" Prentiss yelled as Morgan navigated them to their destination.

Hotch, Rossi, and JJ were in the vehicle behind them and right on their tail.

"How close are we?" Morgan demanded.

He could practically feel the tension within the female agent beside him. Her normally stoic expression remained completely intact, but he knew her well enough to know she was worried.

Hell, their entire team was.

"Two more miles."

Even if he hadn't known her, the terse response would have given her away. This wasn't the way any member of the team imagined spending their Christmas Eve.

It had all started as a local case in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The team had been called in earlier that morning. Four victims had gone missing each night of the annual Winter Festival that took place the five days leading up to Christmas. There was no connection between the victims except for the location of their abduction. Each victim was found inside a coffin.

The coffins definitely caught the team's attention. They were slightly smaller than a normal sized coffin, so small that the second victim barely fit in it. Each one was made of oak wood and had a Christmas tree carved in the top. This indicated that the unsub made them himself.

After talking to the coroner, Morgan and Reid learned that the victims had died of suffocation. Each one had ligature marks around their wrists and ankles. Two of the victims had bruises on their shoulders and legs. Even though they were bound, they had tried to break out of the coffin before they suffocated, but had failed.

The coffins were disposed of in various places throughout Fredericksburg, so Reid wasn't even able to determine a geographical profile of where the unsub might dump his next victim. One was found in an abandoned warehouse by some unfortunate kids that were dared to go in by their friends. Another was found at Old Mill Park. The other two were found in different alleys across the city from one another.

The victims and dumping grounds were random, making the profile fairly difficult to build. Not that they had much time to come up with one. Since Christmas Eve would be the last night of the festival, the Behavioral Analysis Unit had very little choice except to work with local law enforcement to increase the security surrounding the festivities in downtown Fredericksburg.

It had done little good.

The team had paired up to cover more ground within the festival. Prentiss and Reid had been partnered together and they split off from the others. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but then again, security working at the festival said the exact same thing about the four previous nights.

Prentiss felt sick as she remembered the events that occurred just a few hours previously, but somehow it felt as if it had been an eternity.

 ** _*flashback*_**

 _A scream barely echoed over the roar of the crowd. She looked around for the source. A little girl had fallen and her mother was at her side in an instant, picking her up and carrying her away to a place where she could hopefully calm down. She sighed in relief as she continued to navigate through the sea of people._

 _"Prentiss!" Morgan called._

 _She whipped around to face the fellow agent as he and Rossi approached her._

 _"Have you guys seen anything?" she asked._

 _"No, but where's Reid?"_

 _"He's right…." she trailed off as she looked around._

 _The young agent was nowhere to be seen._

 _"I'm calling him now," Rossi said, pulling out his phone._

 _She tried not to assume the worst. He could have just gotten caught up in the crowd. Hundreds of people did attend this festival, after all._

 _However, she knew something was wrong when Rossi's face fell._

 _"Straight to voicemail," the older agent muttered._

 _After calling Hotch, the five agents along with local police searched every inch of the premises for Reid._

 _The young agent was nowhere to be found._

 ** _*end flashback*_**

Something was off. The unsub disposed of his other victims' cellphones at the festival, but Reid's wasn't found anywhere. There was always the chance that someone had stolen it.

The only thing the team could really do was ask around to see if anyone had seen the young genius. Some recognized him when he and Prentiss had walked around during the festivities, but no one had seen him leave. The more time that passed, the more worried everyone got.

A newfound hope spread throughout the team and police force when Garcia called and said Reid's phone had been turned back on. She tracked it to an abandoned warehouse twenty miles away from the festival.

Morgan barely had time to stop the car before Prentiss jumped out. Within seconds, their teammates joined them.

"You two check around back," Hotch ordered. "We'll take the front."

Nodding Prentiss and Morgan unholstered their guns, readied their flashlights, and ran around to the back of the warehouse. Morgan easily kicked the door down, and the two entered.

It was silent.

Knowing that Reid was somewhere around here made the fact that it was silent even more unsettling. Almost right away, the two could see their teammates across the warehouse. It really was abandoned. There weren't any boxes left or anything. Their flashlights were providing the only light in the warehouse. It was just empty…except for the coffin.

Unlike the others, this one was wrapped in red and green wrapping paper. Reid's phone was on top of it with a bow on it. It was just sick.

The team quickly unwrapped the coffin. Exactly like the others, a Christmas tree was carved into the oak wood. Unlike how the police reported the others were found, this coffin just had a lock keeping it closed as a normal coffin would as opposed to being nailed shut.

Hotch opened it.

Their youngest teammate was inside…alive.

"Reid!" Morgan couldn't help but gasp in relief.

Like the other victims, his wrists and ankles were bound. A strip of tape covered his mouth. The young agent's eyes widened when he saw his teammates.

Morgan and Hotch didn't hesitate to lift him up and out of the coffin, taking off the tape and untying him.

"Are you okay?" Hotch asked.

Reid nodded.

"I'm sorry. I didn't get a good look at him. Right after I lost Prentiss, someone pressed a gun into my side. He told me to face forward and cooperate, or he would start shooting into the crowd. Once he snuck me out of the festival, he knocked me out."

Morgan helped Reid to his feet, enveloping him in a hug as soon as the young agent was standing. While he had been hoping Reid had gotten a chance to see their unsub, he couldn't care less about that right now. His friend was safe. That's all that mattered to him.

Prentiss hugged Reid the second Morgan let him go.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, "I shouldn't have let us get separated."

"It's okay, Emily. I'm fine. You all found me in time."

JJ couldn't express the joy she was feeling now that she knew Reid was all right. Her eyes wandered back to the coffin, the object that her son's godfather could have died in. She did a double take when she got a better look at the inside of the lid. There was a piece of paper on it.

"There's something taped to the lid," she said, gaining the attention of her teammates.

Hotch grabbed the piece of paper.

It was a note.

 _I'm so honored the Behavioral Analysis Unit was brought on to this case. I was really hoping you would come. I've been waiting for this chance for quite some time now, but I guess you could say I found some holiday cheer. I had the opportunity to kill Dr. Reid, but I left him alive. I could have taken away one of your own. I could have destroyed your family, but I decided not to. Consider this your Christmas present from me. Next year, I might not be so nice. I'll hopefully see you all then._

 _Merry Christmas._

"He killed those people in the hopes to get our attention," Rossi observed.

"We've encountered this unsub before," Prentiss commented, "He said he had been waiting for quite some time. He obviously has some sort of grudge against us."

A tense moment of silence filled the warehouse. No one wanted to address the fact that this unsub had fully intended to kill Reid, but he just happened to change his mind. None of them wanted to think about how close they had come to losing their teammate.

Hotch walked over to Reid. Getting a closer look at the young agent, he now noticed a small trickle of blood peeking out from under his hair. That must have been from when the unsub rendered him unconscious.

"We're getting your head checked out," he said in a tone that didn't allow for protests.

He and Rossi put a hand on Reid's shoulders and guided him out of the warehouse, the others right on their heels.

They walked on in the silent night.

A part of their family had almost been cruelly ripped away from them. However, they couldn't dwell on that anymore.

They still had a lot of questions that would remain unanswered for now, but they wouldn't think about that.

Not tonight.

Tonight, they would be grateful for the fact that Spencer Reid was still alive and their family remained whole.

 **And there it is! I hope you all enjoyed this little oneshot! I hope to start a new Criminal Minds fanfic soon in the near future! I'm super excited for it and can't wait to write it!**

 **Merry Christmas!**


End file.
